One of the highlights of each month is the appearance of my Real Simple magazine in my mailbox. When I first got married, my grandma ordered me a subscription, and she has renewed it annually since. I LOVE REAL SIMPLE. It is the perfect blend of organizing tips, heartwarming (but not vomit-inducing) stories, cleaning advice, gift ideas, and recipes. Every month when it arrives, I eagerly await Shabbos night, when I will finally have a chance to relax on the couch and bust it open. Inevitably, I fall asleep a few pages in (that's what Friday nights are for), and continue the next day. Once Shabbos is over, I go back through and tear out the pages I want to keep. At one point I had a large binder filled with articles and recipes I had collected from Real Simple, but I haven't seen it since we moved from Manhattan 4 years ago.
Most of my cooking is done without using recipes or following a set plan. I tend to just throw different things together and hope that it works! I do have a large selection of cookbooks, plus a recipe book of family favorites from a wedding shower, but on an average week (ok, really an average month), I don't crack those open. Following cookbook recipes tends to mean needing a lot of specific ingredients, which means planning ahead, and that's just not how things happen in my house.
So when I sit down to read the Real Simple recipe pages, I do so knowing that the likelihood of me cooking the dishes is low. What tends to lower these odds even further is the high prevalence of pork and shrimp in their recipes. Apparently cooking with pork and shrimp is fast and easy, which is the theme of the magazine's recipes. This doesn't do much good for a good shomer kashrut girl like myself. I am really good at adapting recipes to make them kosher or parve or nut free, but taking a pork recipe and making it a chicken recipe isn't as easy as it should be. What works with pork - or shrimp for that matter - will not necessarily taste so good with chicken. I tend to leave those recipes alone.
For the rest of the recipes, I have to read them with an open mind. If followed to the tee, most of them are not kosher. There's a lot of sprinkling cheese on top of meat, adding chicken broth to a dairy soup, or using cream to thicken a sauce. That's when my magical adaptation skills come along. After keeping kosher for a while, I started reading recipes differently. Here's an example:
You may see the word "milk." I see "soy milk."
You see "butter." I see "margarine."
You see "heavy cream." I see Rich's brand non-dairy creamer.
You see "milk chocolate chips." I see "parve chocolate chips" (so hard to find in a regular grocery store.)
Etc. etc. etc. You get the drift.
This may seem totally obvious and intuitive right now, but for many people who just start keeping kosher, it isn't. You see a recipe and forget that it can be changed and adapted and substituted until it meets your needs. This doesn't work for everything (there's a special family recipe that my mother-in-law holds dear which simply cannot be made parve, but we survive), but I'd venture to say that almost any dish can be changed to fit your needs.
Thinking about it can be exhausting, though. See why I tend to avoid recipes altogether? :)
Friday, February 4, 2011
Shout Out
I would like to offer a shout out to Butterflake Bakery, which is kosher, nut free, and DELICIOUS! They offer a large assortment of yummy challahs, cakes, cookies, and other desserts. They make quiche! They make focaccia!Their challah is perfectly golden on the outside and doughy on the inside. They make challahs of all different sizes, rolls, and even chocolate and cinnamon challahs! The cinnamon challah is more like cake or babka than bread. Mmmm...
Butterflake is based out of Teaneck, but they deliver all over, and their products are carried in lots of stores in my area. Check out their online store and order some for yourself!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
The Wrong Lunch
It's been a while since I've blogged. I'd like to think that I'll post more often, but between workingshoppingcookingcleaningschleppingorganizingplanningchildrearing I'm sometimes a little pre-occupied.
Well, we're still kosher, and we're still nut free. The fun new cherry on top of the peanut allergy sundae is that my son now has asthma too, which apparently is connected to his allergy. The pediatric pulmonologist we visited told me that she's never met a child with a peanut allergy who didn't also have asthma. Wouldn't it have been nice for the allergist to mention this to me last year when he diagnosed my son? Wouldn't it have been nice for my pediatrician to mention this before sending my son for cystic fibrosis tests? Yes to both. In any case, our house is now a mini pharmacy. In addition to the usual mommy supplies like Tylenol (my new favorite are the meltaways), ibuprofen, and bandaids, we're fully stocked with epi-pens, benadryl, albuterol, flovent, and optichambers. The epi-pens and optichambers are not covered by insurance; thank goodness for flex spending accounts!
We've had a couple of nut free hiccups over the past couple of months. Each time my son was fine, B"H, but both incidents were scary nonetheless.
Scary nut incident #1: One Shabbos morning in December, my DH was sicker than I've ever seen him. No voice, fever, terrible cough, etc. I decided to bundle up the boys - and myself - and head to shul while leaving DH home in bed to rest. It was a regular week at shul with no special simchas, so they had laid out the regular post-davening snacks: herring (blech), crackers, soda, and an assortment of Entenmann's cakes and donuts cut into tiny pieces. The usual fair is predictable and nut free, so I don't tend to keep a close eye on my son while he runs around, socializing and making typical 3.5 year-old trouble.
Well, on this particular Shabbos, I was busy talking to my closest shul friend, who had just shared fabulous news with me (babies! babies! babies!), when my son ran up to me with a piece of something in his hand and said, "Ima, does this have peanuts?" I immediately said no, but as he turned away (while taking a big bite), I suddenly had a feeling that he wasn't holding one of the usual cakes or donuts. I called him back and grabbed the cake out of his hand. Sure enough, it was some kind of nut cake. It didn't have peanuts (BARUCH HASHEM) but it did have big pieces of either walnuts or pecans. I essentially threw the cake to the side, yanked the half-chewed piece out of his mouth, and started freaking out. "Do you feel ok? Does your throat feel funny? Is your mouth itchy?" I was staring at him from about 2 inches away from his face, just waiting to see if a rash started to form, or if his breathing changed. The poor kid was scared out of his mind. He looked like he was about to burst into tears. I didn't know whether it was because he felt sick or because his mother was going ape$hit ballistic in the middle of shul, but I managed to squash the situation before the tantrum began. After talking to him about it (and feeling better because a few minutes had passed and no symptoms had appeared), I concluded that he was sad because he had eaten nuts, and he was sad that I had taken his cake. With a new donut in hand and a big kiss from Ima, he was back to normal within moments.
I learned my lesson. Even "safe" places aren't. Grr.
Speaking of a false sense of security, let's move onto Scary Nut Incident #2.
My son's school is nut-free-seed-free, which is great...usually. There is the occasional day when my son comes home telling me that Shmuli (name changed to protect the innocent) had a birthday party but the cookies had traces of nuts, so he had a banana instead, but usually I can rest assured that when he is in school, he doesn't have to be worried about nuts.
A couple of weeks ago, my DH called me at work to tell me that my son's teacher called him to say that they accidentally served sesame seeds with lunch. Although my son's one confirmed allergy is to peanuts, he is also supposed to avoid all nuts and sesame seeds. So anyway, the school's food is cooked in Brooklyn, then shipped to Yonkers every day. Apparently, without realizing it, they had served sesame chicken to the kids. After a bite or two, my son's teacher realized what had happened and took the food away from him, brought him to the office, and called DH. Again, B"H he had no reaction, but he was sad that his food was taken away. DH expressed his disappointment that the situation had occured and his appreciation that they had handled it the way they did, but now we have to worry about him even when he's at school!
That evening, when I got home from work and asked him if anything sad had happened at lunch that day, he told me that his morahs (Hebrew word for teacher) had given him the wrong lunch. That just about broke my heart. My sweet, trusting little boy who knows that he's not allowed to eat nuts or sesames but also knows that food at school should be safe. When I asked him what they gave him after taking away the "wrong" lunch, he told me they gave him grapes. The image of him sitting in school eating grapes for lunch is just so sad.
Since that day, there have been a few mornings when he has said, "I hope my morahs don't give me the wrong lunch today." I hope not too.
Well, we're still kosher, and we're still nut free. The fun new cherry on top of the peanut allergy sundae is that my son now has asthma too, which apparently is connected to his allergy. The pediatric pulmonologist we visited told me that she's never met a child with a peanut allergy who didn't also have asthma. Wouldn't it have been nice for the allergist to mention this to me last year when he diagnosed my son? Wouldn't it have been nice for my pediatrician to mention this before sending my son for cystic fibrosis tests? Yes to both. In any case, our house is now a mini pharmacy. In addition to the usual mommy supplies like Tylenol (my new favorite are the meltaways), ibuprofen, and bandaids, we're fully stocked with epi-pens, benadryl, albuterol, flovent, and optichambers. The epi-pens and optichambers are not covered by insurance; thank goodness for flex spending accounts!
We've had a couple of nut free hiccups over the past couple of months. Each time my son was fine, B"H, but both incidents were scary nonetheless.
Scary nut incident #1: One Shabbos morning in December, my DH was sicker than I've ever seen him. No voice, fever, terrible cough, etc. I decided to bundle up the boys - and myself - and head to shul while leaving DH home in bed to rest. It was a regular week at shul with no special simchas, so they had laid out the regular post-davening snacks: herring (blech), crackers, soda, and an assortment of Entenmann's cakes and donuts cut into tiny pieces. The usual fair is predictable and nut free, so I don't tend to keep a close eye on my son while he runs around, socializing and making typical 3.5 year-old trouble.
Well, on this particular Shabbos, I was busy talking to my closest shul friend, who had just shared fabulous news with me (babies! babies! babies!), when my son ran up to me with a piece of something in his hand and said, "Ima, does this have peanuts?" I immediately said no, but as he turned away (while taking a big bite), I suddenly had a feeling that he wasn't holding one of the usual cakes or donuts. I called him back and grabbed the cake out of his hand. Sure enough, it was some kind of nut cake. It didn't have peanuts (BARUCH HASHEM) but it did have big pieces of either walnuts or pecans. I essentially threw the cake to the side, yanked the half-chewed piece out of his mouth, and started freaking out. "Do you feel ok? Does your throat feel funny? Is your mouth itchy?" I was staring at him from about 2 inches away from his face, just waiting to see if a rash started to form, or if his breathing changed. The poor kid was scared out of his mind. He looked like he was about to burst into tears. I didn't know whether it was because he felt sick or because his mother was going ape$hit ballistic in the middle of shul, but I managed to squash the situation before the tantrum began. After talking to him about it (and feeling better because a few minutes had passed and no symptoms had appeared), I concluded that he was sad because he had eaten nuts, and he was sad that I had taken his cake. With a new donut in hand and a big kiss from Ima, he was back to normal within moments.
I learned my lesson. Even "safe" places aren't. Grr.
Speaking of a false sense of security, let's move onto Scary Nut Incident #2.
My son's school is nut-free-seed-free, which is great...usually. There is the occasional day when my son comes home telling me that Shmuli (name changed to protect the innocent) had a birthday party but the cookies had traces of nuts, so he had a banana instead, but usually I can rest assured that when he is in school, he doesn't have to be worried about nuts.
A couple of weeks ago, my DH called me at work to tell me that my son's teacher called him to say that they accidentally served sesame seeds with lunch. Although my son's one confirmed allergy is to peanuts, he is also supposed to avoid all nuts and sesame seeds. So anyway, the school's food is cooked in Brooklyn, then shipped to Yonkers every day. Apparently, without realizing it, they had served sesame chicken to the kids. After a bite or two, my son's teacher realized what had happened and took the food away from him, brought him to the office, and called DH. Again, B"H he had no reaction, but he was sad that his food was taken away. DH expressed his disappointment that the situation had occured and his appreciation that they had handled it the way they did, but now we have to worry about him even when he's at school!
That evening, when I got home from work and asked him if anything sad had happened at lunch that day, he told me that his morahs (Hebrew word for teacher) had given him the wrong lunch. That just about broke my heart. My sweet, trusting little boy who knows that he's not allowed to eat nuts or sesames but also knows that food at school should be safe. When I asked him what they gave him after taking away the "wrong" lunch, he told me they gave him grapes. The image of him sitting in school eating grapes for lunch is just so sad.
Since that day, there have been a few mornings when he has said, "I hope my morahs don't give me the wrong lunch today." I hope not too.
Friday, May 7, 2010
The First Casualty
Tears well up in my eyes as I bid a sad farewell to Duncan Hines brownies, those delicious, easy, parve-o-licious treats that fill my belly almost every Shabbos. While I am a cooker, I'm not much of a baker (who has the time?), so Duncan Hines brownie mixes are the perfect solution to a husband who loves chocolate and a wife who likes the ease of combining a bagged mix, oil, water, and eggs.Who can forget the near-tragedy a few years ago when Duncan Hines stopped being parve for a short while? After rushing the stores and buying out all of the parve brownie mixes they had in stock, I actually signed a petition to bring back the parve status! My social activism was a success, and they regained their parve-ness within months.
Last night, as I was about to begin making my favorite Shabbos dessert, I noticed the label of darkness:
MANUFACTURED ON EQUIPMENT THAT ALSO PROCESSES PEANUTS AND TREE NUTS
Noooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I thought DH was going to cry. I thought I was going to cry! This is the first significant victim of our newly nut-free kitchen.
Darn you peanut-ridden equipment. Thank goodness the cake mixes are a different story.
I thought DH was going to cry. I thought I was going to cry! This is the first significant victim of our newly nut-free kitchen.
Darn you peanut-ridden equipment. Thank goodness the cake mixes are a different story.
Goodbye old friend.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
What's for Dinner?
I love to cook. That is to say, I love to cook when I have the time and energy, spending time in the kitchen isn't going to pull me away from one of my favorite tv shows, and I am interested in eating whatever it is I am about to cook. In an average week, I rely on Shabbos leftovers for Sunday night dinner, make a baked ziti for Monday and Tuesday dinner, cook something random for Wednesday night dinner, and order out on Thursdays (did I mention I love...as in love...pizza?).
In other weeks, I rely heavily on cereal, ice cream, and takeout to get me through the week. Healthy, I know.
Anyway, on those nights when I do decide to cook dinner, I am usually only interested in making something that takes 25 minutes or less, doesn't involve a lot of cleanup, and uses ingredients that I already have on hand. This is what I came up with this week:
Tuesday: Chicken hot dogs over ziti with broccoli (thank you frozen bodek veggies) and mushroom tomato sauce
Wednesday: Baked breaded flounder with rotini pasta tossed with olive oil, mozzarella, fresh basil, and fresh tomatoes
Thursday night is reserved for Shabbos cooking (as is Friday afternoon after I get home from work). We're having guests this week. Honored guests at that! My mom is coming in town to spend Mother's Day with her grandsons (my husband and I will be there too, but we're just an added bonus; it's the kids she comes to see), my best friend from college just finished her JD and is coming to town with her husband, and my brother is making a special guest appearance to surprise my mom! A regular menu won't do. Here's what I have planned:
Shabbos Dinner:
In other weeks, I rely heavily on cereal, ice cream, and takeout to get me through the week. Healthy, I know.
Anyway, on those nights when I do decide to cook dinner, I am usually only interested in making something that takes 25 minutes or less, doesn't involve a lot of cleanup, and uses ingredients that I already have on hand. This is what I came up with this week:
Tuesday: Chicken hot dogs over ziti with broccoli (thank you frozen bodek veggies) and mushroom tomato sauce
Wednesday: Baked breaded flounder with rotini pasta tossed with olive oil, mozzarella, fresh basil, and fresh tomatoes
Thursday night is reserved for Shabbos cooking (as is Friday afternoon after I get home from work). We're having guests this week. Honored guests at that! My mom is coming in town to spend Mother's Day with her grandsons (my husband and I will be there too, but we're just an added bonus; it's the kids she comes to see), my best friend from college just finished her JD and is coming to town with her husband, and my brother is making a special guest appearance to surprise my mom! A regular menu won't do. Here's what I have planned:
Shabbos Dinner:
- Butterflake challah
- Homemade chicken soup (from the freezer; I made it a few months ago and was saving it for an occasion like this one)
- Tomato basil chicken (Kosher By Design, Short on Time)
- Salami Quiche Florentine (KBD, SOT)
- Hearts of palm/avocado/tomato salad
- Sweet potato casserole
- Cake (should have been brownies, but more about that later...)
- Challah
- Red bliss potato salad (Kosher By Design)
- Tomato basil chicken (sound familiar?)
- Green beans with garlic
- Corn on the cob
- Cake (should have been brownies, but more about that later...)
My First List
This was my first week buying nut free, so I was particularly nervous and tried to play it safe. On kosher.com I am assured that things are kosher, but I am not able to read food labels at all. (Attention makers of kosher.com: if you are reading this, please add clear copies of all food labels to your website). On peapod, I can see fairly clear images of the food labels, but their kashrut labeling is not always accurate or complete.
See what I'm dealing with here?
Anyway, here is a list of products which are both kosher and nut free:
See what I'm dealing with here?
Anyway, here is a list of products which are both kosher and nut free:
- Of Tov Chicken Breast Nuggets (I was worried about peanut oil)
- Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Shells
- Arnold Stone Ground 100% Whole Wheat Bread
- Heinz Ketchup
- Galil Sun Dried Tomatoes in Oil
- Lieber's Cut Hearts of Palm
- Fleischmann's Unsalted Margarine Sticks (B'H! What would I do without this in my kitchen?!)
- Butterflake Challah (the whole bakery is nut free!)
- Rold Gold Pretzels Tiny Twists
Let's Start at the Very Beginning
Flash back to a young girl growing up in Lexington, KY, eating peanut butter sandwiches almost daily and serving as a taste-tester for Long John Silvers seafood restaurant.
Flash forward to a mother of two who keeps kosher and just found out that her toddler has a severe allergy to peanuts.
Both girls are me. We'll call me Mama Wass.
I've been keeping kosher for 5+ years, and by now shopping, cooking, and eating within the rules of kashrut is old hat. I work full-time, and I survive by doing most of my shopping - including groceries - online. As I recently stated to a friend, without the internet my children would be naked and hungry. Two websites, kosher.com and peapod help keep food in our bellies and our fridge.
Unfortunately (for many reasons, with my shopping preferences falling low on the list), last week my 2.5 year-old was diagnosed with a severe peanut allergy and has now been instructed to avoid peanuts, nuts, sesame seeds, and anything manufactured with or near these products. We must be diligent about reading the labels on any food he may eat. Here's the problem: I shop online! It's not possible to see the exact labels on the food I buy. When faced with the possibility of no longer being able to buy groceries online, my knees began to shake and beads of sweat formed on my brow. I quickly realized that I needed a list. A list of kosher/nut free products that I could safely buy (and then double-check at home) online.
Since google is my friend (except for an unfortunate incident involving images of tumors with teeth and hair), I quickly turned to it to search for such a list. Much to my surprise and disappointment, one doesn't appear to exist.
So I decided to start a blog. I'm hoping that this blog will serve as an ongoing resource for me (and others like me), who need a quick reference list of kosher, nut-free groceries. While my notebook could serve the same purpose, I've always wanted to write a blog, so here it is.
Flash forward to a mother of two who keeps kosher and just found out that her toddler has a severe allergy to peanuts.
Both girls are me. We'll call me Mama Wass.
I've been keeping kosher for 5+ years, and by now shopping, cooking, and eating within the rules of kashrut is old hat. I work full-time, and I survive by doing most of my shopping - including groceries - online. As I recently stated to a friend, without the internet my children would be naked and hungry. Two websites, kosher.com and peapod help keep food in our bellies and our fridge.
Unfortunately (for many reasons, with my shopping preferences falling low on the list), last week my 2.5 year-old was diagnosed with a severe peanut allergy and has now been instructed to avoid peanuts, nuts, sesame seeds, and anything manufactured with or near these products. We must be diligent about reading the labels on any food he may eat. Here's the problem: I shop online! It's not possible to see the exact labels on the food I buy. When faced with the possibility of no longer being able to buy groceries online, my knees began to shake and beads of sweat formed on my brow. I quickly realized that I needed a list. A list of kosher/nut free products that I could safely buy (and then double-check at home) online.
Since google is my friend (except for an unfortunate incident involving images of tumors with teeth and hair), I quickly turned to it to search for such a list. Much to my surprise and disappointment, one doesn't appear to exist.
So I decided to start a blog. I'm hoping that this blog will serve as an ongoing resource for me (and others like me), who need a quick reference list of kosher, nut-free groceries. While my notebook could serve the same purpose, I've always wanted to write a blog, so here it is.
Welcome to my blog. It, like my house, is kosher and nut free.
p.s. Here's my disclaimer: Always double-check food labels before assuming that they are a) kosher or b) nut free. Things change, so just because something was once safe to eat doesn't mean it still is now. Be careful. Use me as a reference but not as a final green light.
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