Premier Q&A Dinner at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago March 7th! - Finally a safe & sound night out for allergy sufferers!

We just finalized the date and times for our first Q&A Dinner, come and bring your questions about your food allergies, we are going to have nutritionists, allergist and chefs available for this unique panel. The dinner will be prepared free of the 8 major allergens plus gluten for people with manageable food allergies and includes a gift bag, valued at over $50. Space is limited so make your reservations now.
The Q&A Dinner series will be a monthly event, so keep checking back for new dates or if you sign-up for the Q&A membership, you will get first notice of all new events. To attend any Q&A Dinners you must be a member, it is a fast and easy process and there is NO COST to join. Click on image below to register.

Lisa Cooks Minestrone Soup – It’s Cold!

It is 19° F in Chicago and very windy, a great day to bundle up and enjoy a nice hearty soup. How about some Minestrone? It is such a healthy soup and can be easily made vegetarian by replacing the beef stock with vegetable stock. You can use whatever pasta works with your families allergies; I used a potato pasta in this batch. Enjoy!

Minestrone
Serves 10



1 cup kidney beans
2 cups beef broth
6 cups water
1 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3 large carrots, diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
1 cup potatoes, sliced
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup cooked rice, potato or corn pasta
1 tablespoon Kosher salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup cooked tomatoes

Soak kidney beans overnight and strain.
Place beans, beef broth and water in large kettle; cook 4 hours.
In a separate pan, sauté onion, garlic, carrots, celery and potatoes in extra-virgin olive oil on medium-high heat until tender.
Add vegetables to beans; cover kettle and cook slowly for 30 minutes, stirring often.
Cook pasta according to packaging instruction.
Add macaroni, Kosher salt, ground black pepper and tomatoes. Simmer 15 minutes.
Add more beef broth if you like your soup thinner.

Lisa Shops for Gluten Free Products – What Other Ingredients Mean Gluten...and Tasty Meatballs

When I first was diagnosed with food allergies, I knew I couldn’t eat gluten, but what did that really mean? Well, it means a lot more than just gluten when it came to reading food labels, that’s for sure.

Below, I gathered a list of other ingredients or products that could possibly contain wheat or gluten. If you see these, you are going to have to dig a little more, call or email the manufacturer, you may have to be persistent, they aren’t always in a hurry to reply. In future posts, I will tackle other allergens and hidden ingredients to look for. If you have some to add to this list, send me a comment and I will add them, we all learn together. This list comes from several sources, I got some from my doctor, Dr. H. Martha Howard (http://www.wellnessofchicago.com/) and also some from the http://www.gfcfdiet.com/.

Abyssian Hard Barley Barley Flour Barley Malt Beer Bleached All Purpose Flour Bouillon Cubes or Powder Bran Brown Flour Bulgar Caramel Color Cereal Binding Cereal Extract Chorizo Cracker Meal Delactosed Whey Demineralized Whey Durum Durum Flour

Edible Starch Farina Filler Food Starch Fu Gelatinized Starch Germ Glutamate Graham Flour Granary Flour Ground Spices Hydrolyzed Oat Starch Hydrolyzed Plant Protein Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein Kamut Malt Malt Syrup Malt Vinegar

Modified Starch Oat Flour Pastry Flour Pearl Barley Rice Malt Rice Syrup Rye Flour Seitan Semolina Flour Soba Noodles Spelt Sprouted Flour Teriyaki Sauce Vegetable Gum Vitamins Whey Hydrolysate Whole Meal Flour

On to something to eat, enjoy!

Jumbo Meatballs
Serves 4-6

Add these meatballs to your next rice pasta dish or just eat them alone, great for kids to snack on.

1 pound ground beef
½ pound ground pork
¼ cup rice milk
equivalent 1 egg
¼ cup rice breadcrumbs
¼ cup onion, chopped
1 tablespoon ketchup
2 tablespoons flat leaf Italian parsley, chopped
1½ teaspoons Kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
¼ cup bacon drippings
¼ cup beef broth
¼ cup rice flour (if you want gravy)

Mix all ingredients except bacon drippings and beef broth.
Shape into 1½-inch balls.
Refrigerate at least one hour.
Pre-heat sauté pan over medium-high heat and add bacon drippings.
Brown meatballs in pan and add beef broth, add cover.
Reduce heat to low and simmer 45 minutes or until meat is cooked.
If you want gravy, remove meatballs and slowly add rice flour to mixture.

Lisa Shops for Allergen-Free All Purpose Flour

I got a question from the Boyle family with a severe nut allergy since 7/08 regarding where to find all purpose flour when avoiding nuts, dairy, flour or wheat and eggs. I sent out requests from several flour manufacturing companies and am waiting to hear back from most of them, but thought I would share with you what I found out from Bob’s Red Mill.

I am just going to copy the email sent to me from Bob’s Red Mill Customer Service.

“We are mindful of the concerns of the allergen-sensitive community and we utilize ‘Good Manufacturing Practices’ to diminish any risk of allergen cross-contact. We segregate our ingredients and thoroughly clean our equipment between production runs with high powered air pressure. Also, the first 30 lbs of product run on any line is purged and not packaged.

It is Bob's Red Mill's policy and practice to apply elective allergen advisory statements to all Bob's Red Mill product labels.

Gluten Free products bear the following statement:
‘Manufactured in a facility that also uses tree nuts and soy.’

Any labels seen without an allergy advisory statement were produced prior to our recent implementation of this practice. Our labels will be replaced with the newer version as soon as existing stock runs out.

We do not have peanuts or shellfish at our facility.”

Ok, so that is one, but I still want to find one completely free of tree nuts, I will keep you posted as I get information back from the manufacturers.
Until then, you can also do some digging; I listed some allergen-free flour manufacturers and what I know about them based on packaging. I also included manufacturers that make rice flours and other types, so you can mix your own blend of all-purpose flour.

BEWARE: Manufacturers are changing their packaging and manufacturing practices all the time, it is important you read the label every time before buying.

• Arrowhead Mills – gluten free, wheat free, organic, this company also manufacturers nut butters, I am waiting to hear back from them on what other allergies are of concern. Arrowhead Mills manufacturers Blue Corn Meal, White Rice Flour, Millet Flour, Oat Flour and Yellow Corn Meal http://www.arrowheadmills.com/
  
• Domata Living Flour – This all purpose mix contains Rice Flour, Corn Starch, Tapioca Dextrin, Xanthan Gum and they maintain to be dairy, sugar and wheat/gluten free, in fact they were “Awarded the Celiac Sprue Association Seal of Recognition for meeting the strictest criteria in Product, Processing, and Packaging”. http://www.domatalivingflour.com/
  
• Authentic Foods (Bette Hagman's 4 Flour Blend) contains Brown rice flour, sweet rice flour, tapioca flour, cornstarch, potato starch, xanthan gum, the site states that this product is gluten, soy and dairy free. They are closed for the holidays until next week. http://www.authenticfoods.com/
  

This will give you a good start, I will keep looking and get back to you as I hear back, I know how important it is to find the right product for your family. Feel free to send me an questions you have, I will start digging, we can all learn together.

On to the food!
This recipe I learned in school and modified it to be safe allergen free. It came out wonderfully and now is one of our families favorites, enjoy!

Chicken Marsala
Serves 4



Extra virgin olive oil
2 chicken breasts, cut in ½
1 cup rice flour
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
8 ounces mushrooms, sliced
½ onion, diced
¼ cup white wine
½ cup chicken broth

Take chicken breasts and put in large plastic bag.
Pound breasts until they're all at equal thicknesses.
Pre-heat sauté pan to medium and add extra virgin olive oil.
Dip chicken in mixture of flour and salt and coat on both sides, shake excess flour mix off chicken.
Sauté chicken breasts, about 4 minutes on each side, remove from pan.
Add a little more extra virgin olive oil and onions and mushrooms, cook until slightly browned.
Add wine and chicken stock and scrape crumbles from bottom of pan.
Reduce liquid down and add back in chicken breasts to reheat.

Spicy Chicken and Rice - Another Quick Recipe to Make Before the Big Day!

So much is going on, wrapping last minute presents, finishing up your big menu, and worst case scenario, you are still shopping! Well this meal is a quick, one-pan, dish that your family will love. This dish has some kick, so if you don’t like a lot of spice, reduce the amount of cayenne pepper. This is a dish that is better the next day. One other note, you can use green, red or yellow peppers for this recipe. I used yellow peppers; they were on sale.

Spicy Chicken and Rice
Serves 4-6



2 pounds frying chicken
½ pound ham, cubed
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup green pepper, chopped
1 cup onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ teaspoon thyme
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
3 cups chicken broth
1½ cups uncooked rice

Cut chicken in legs, thighs, breasts leaving meat on bone (or you can buy it already cut up.
Saute chicken and ham in extra-virgin olive oil over medium-high heat for 5 minutes on each side and remove from pan. Make sure you get a nice golden crispy skin, this will seal the juices in the meat.
In same pan, saute pepper, onion and garlic 5 minutes over medium heat.
Add seasonings and broth and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add rice and meat.
Simmer 25 minutes, covered.
Fluff rice with fork and cook 5 minutes longer.
Enjoy!