Dairy Free, Soy Free, sweet crepes

I’m no Pioneer Woman, but I do enjoy cooking. It just so happens that my family has some minor dietary issues that I try to work around, and as much as I can, I cook without dairy. I also try not to rely too heavily on soy. Coconut oil has become my butter replacement for most recipes (eggs, pancakes, muffins, bread…), and I’ve recently started using coconut milk in place of both soy and dairy milk in my cooking. It gives me the creaminess that I crave, and it keeps BB and Hubby’s bellies happy.

Since it’s Thursday, it was breakfast for dinner night (I know, I forgot to post my menu this week), and BB wanted crepes. Here are a few pictures and a recipe for my dairy/soy free crepes.

1/2 cup all purpose flour
Pinch salt
1 1/2 tbs. sugar
2 tbs melted coconut oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk beverage
1/4 cup lukewarm water

The oil...

The milk

The chef

The batter

Put all ingredients into food processor work bowl with blade attachment and take it for a spin. About 30 seconds should do it. If it doesn’t look like all the flour has combined, scrape the bowl and whir again. Pour into a spouted measuring cup (I use a 4 cup measuring cup), cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, but up to overnight.

A crepe pan is not necessary; I use a 6 in non-stick omelet pan. Put your pan over medium low heat and rub just a teeny bit of coconut oil into the pan to discourage sticking.

And the pan

Mix the batter by hand and pour about 2 tbs into the center of the pan. Spin the pan to coat the bottom evenly and cook for about a minute. Yep, that’s BB pouring the batter and spinning the pan. Crepes are so easy an eight year old can make them.

Pour

And spin

Flip the crepe and cook another 15-20 seconds. I’ve heard that they make special crepe flippers, but I just use my fingers. Gently grab the edge and turn the crepe over. Don’t fear the heat. Your fingers will get used to it, if they aren’t already. If you are too afraid to use your bare hands, you can use a rubber spatula to help you lift the crepe up and flip it. I have found that they almost always tear this way, though.

Flip the cooked crepe onto a plate and repeat the process.

Flip!

If you are feeling ambitious you can fill each crepe with jam (and cream cheese if bellies will allow), put into a baking dish, sprinkle with sugar and cook at 400 for a few minutes. Me? I don’t do that. I put toppings on the table and let everyone fill their own crepes. BB likes a little homemade jam and sometimes a wee-bit of cream cheese. Hubby likes to wrap a piece of bacon in his crepe…a French breakfast burrito!

Fill

Enjoy!

Yum!

Meal Plan Monday (a day late)

BB and Hubby went camping over the weekend, so once again, I have a carry over from last week’s menu.

Monday– Angel hair, meat sauce, green beans

Tuesday– Steak, mashed potatoes, green beans or salad

Wednesday– Chicken Parmigana, homemade bread, asparagus

Thursday– Breakfast (BB’s choice)

Friday–  Navy beans and cornbread, salad

Saturday– Shepherd’s pie

Sunday– Hubby’s  turn to cook

A successful meal

I’m really proud of the way tonight’s dinner turned out.  I made potato leek soup, a salad and French bread.  I’ve never made French bread before, and I was a bit apprehensive, but it turned out better than I hoped.  Maybe, with some practice, bread is something I can make more of.  I do have a bread machine and I make about a loaf a week, but that doesn’t count…it doesn’t even require skill!

BB and Hubby are both sensitive to dairy, so I try really hard to limit their dairy consumption and I try to cook as dairy free as possible.  What possessed me to try my hand at a creamy soup, I’ll never really know, but it worked!  And so that I can refer to this meal again, I’m going to post my recipe.  Or sort of recipe.

I started out with this recipe:

But since it’s full on dairy, I made a few changes. And since I didn’t have golden potatoes I made some changes…and since I didn’t have vegetable stock, I substituted…and I ended up with…

Mom’s Eye’s version of Alton Brown’s Vichyssoise!

Aprox. 3/4 lbs leeks, trimmed and washed
2 tbs. coconut oil
salt
2 medium russet potatoes and 3 small red potatoes, peeled and diced
Aprox 1qt. chicken broth
1 can coconut milk
Aprox 1/4 cup soy milk
pepper
bay leaf

Melt oil over med/low heat, add leeks and salt and let sweat for about 5-10 minutes.  Turn heat down and let cook until leeks are tender, about 25 minutes.  Add diced potatoes, bay leaf and chicken broth.  Let cook till potatoes are soft, about 40 minutes.  I don’t have an immersion blender, so I transferred to a blender, (remove bay leaf please!) pureed the soup and put it back in a pot.  Add coconut milk and stir well.  Add soy milk and stir well.   Season with pepper (Alton says to use white, but I only had black), serve with homemade bread and a lovely salad, and viola!  A delicious, creamy, satisfying, dairy free meal for your main squeezes.

Meal Plan Monday (take 3)

It’s that time again…and does anyone really read this or give a crap what I feed my family?  Probably not, but let’s just pretend so that I don’t fall off the wagon again.  But meal planning is good…it saves money, it encourages closer looking at food choices, it cuts down on waste…it, it…it’s tedious as hell and I need to find a way to make it fun for me or I’ll just give up.  Blogging it makes it a bit more bearable.  So thanks for reading, or at least letting me carry the image of you reading.

Monday– Potato leek soup, homemade French bread, salad

Tuesday– Sandwiches

Wednesday– Tostadas (using the last bit of my big pot ‘o beans)

Thursday– Breakfast- BB’s choice

Friday– Homemade pizza

Saturday– chicken parmigiana

Sunday– Leftovers

Homemade apple fritters

And just because…a picture of the apple fritters I made this morning.  It was my first attempt, and they were pretty darned good.

Damn, I had it all wrong!

“How soon is too soon?  Not soon enough!  Laboratory tests over the last few years have proven that babies who start drinking soda during that early formative period have a much higher chance of gaining acceptance and “fitting in” during those awkward pre-teen and teen years.  So do yourself a favor.  Do your child a favor.  Start them on a strict regimen of soda and other sugary carbonated beverages right now, for  a lifetime of guaranteed happiness”

Oh, if only I could turn back the hands of time and do things differently.

Twice Baked Potatoes

I’m a meat and potatoes kind of gal, and I’m proud to admit it. One of my favorite ways to make a potato is twice baked. MMMM… I rarely make them because we’ve cut way down on the dairy and these babies are chock full of dairy goodness. But having them so infrequently just makes them that much better. 

First, heat the oven up to 425 and toss your scrubbed potatoes in the oven. Ignore the heating element.  Just pretend, like I do, that my oven is a fabulous gas model.

If you have a hubby like mine, you’ll need to chop up a ton of bacon.  I think this is about 8 slices.  Yeah, for three potatoes.  But trust me, freshly cooked bacon nibbles are too much for a man to resist.  You’ll be glad you made a lot of bacon because half of it will be gone before you get to add it to the potatoes.

Cook it in batches so you don’t over crowd the pan.  Your second batch will be darker than the first, but it’ll all taste yummy!

When the bacon is done, lay it out.  I like to put mine in a cast iron skillet because the bacon grease seasons my pan for me.  I don’t lay the bacon on paper towels because it stays crispier if you don’t.

While your bacon is cooking, chop up some onion.  I ususally use yellow onion because it’s always on hand. 

Drain out most of the bacon fat from your pan and cook your onions (and some garlic) in the remaining fat.  It’ll be a beautiful color and it will smell absolutely heavenly.  I promise.  BB, who hates cooked onions, came in at this point, sinffing and asked “What’s cooking?  Smells good!”

Pull your baked potatoes from the oven and split them open to cool.  Be careful, they’ve been in a hot oven for an hour!

When they are cool enough to handle, but still hot, scoop out all the goodness and place in a bowl.  Don’t tear the skins, you’ll be using those as a cooking device.

Add the good stuff to the potatoes.  The good stuf is: sharp cheddar, bacon, onions, garlic, sour cream, butter, and milk.  Oh, and a little pepper.  Reserve some of the bacon and cheese for later use.

Use a handmixer to mix all the ingredients.  It’s not pretty.  Yet.

Carefully add the mixed gloop back to the skins.

Top the potatoes with the reserved bacon and cheddar.  Put the stuffed bakers back in the oven until the cheese is melted.

When the cheese is melty and bubbly (about ten minutes) your twice baked potatoes are ready.  Pair with a nice medium-rare rib-eye,  salad and a beer and you have a very comforting meal.  Hey, occasionally it’s okay to indulge!

Gonna make a pie

A blueberry/apple pie. 

I did not use coconut oil for the crust, but good old fashioned butter.  I want to try the pie with coconut oil next time, though.  I just have to get over my intense fear of failure.

Pie is not my usual baking canvass of choice.  I find that the pie crust can be fickle, and it’s hard to work with becasue it tears.  Transferring it to the pie plate is a chore in itself, and I can’t roll out a nice circle to save my life (see my Tortillas post).  I tend to do much better with cake.  But we had a huge container of blueberries that were so delicious and just begging to be put in a pie.  BB wanted an apple pie, so we compromised by putting apples in the blueberry pie.  It changed the flavor entirely, and the apples turned purple, but it was very yummy.  It may not be county fair pretty, but fear of failure be damned!   I’m fairly certain that I didn’t fail on this one!

    

Oh, and  check out this cute song (which I sung to myself all day long) from the movie Waitress. 

The Pie Song- Quincy Coleman