Author: cookingwithoutallergens

I was born and raised in central New Hampshire but have also lived in Boston; Tempe, Arizona; Pittsfield, Massachusetts; and Derry, New Hampshire before moving to Edina, Minnesota in 2019 after my husband died. I'm a retired archivist, worked for the Arizona State Archives and the National Archives and Records Administration. Began cooking at age 4, learned to read reading a cookbook. As a teenager, I often cooked family meals as my mother was busy correcting papers or doing class preparations for the next day. Began developing food allergies at menopause and the number has grown over the last several decades.

Seafood Pasta Salad (gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free)

This is a recipe passed down from my mother and grandmother. They traditionally made it for our July 4th celebration along with blueberry muffins since usually by early in July, we’d have fresh peas as well blueberries in central New Hampshire. They made it with canned salmon, crab and shrimp but these days fresh or frozen seafood is also widely available. My mother also always made it with the pasta shells for esthetic reasons but you can use whatever type of pasta your family likes.

You can also make it two ways, like the potato salad and the cole slaw, with either a vinaigrette or mayonnaise. I prefer the vinaigrette since it has a lighter taste, especially in the July heat.

Mix in a medium sized bowl:

6-8 ounces of cooked salmon
4 ounces of cooked tiny shrimp
6-8 ounces of cooked lump crabmeat
6-8 ounces of cooked peas
3 stalks of celery diced, don’t forget to add the leaves as well — they have a wonderful celery taste
1/4 cup chopped red onion, chives, or scallions
2 cups cooked gluten-free pasta [here I’ve found that the quinoa pasta works the best because it doesn’t get all mushy if it sits for a day; I’ve also gotten into the chickpea pasta to add more protein]
1/2 cup of your favorite vinaigrette [I make mine with 1/2 olive oil, 1 tablespoon spicy mustard, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 2 tablespoons agave nectar (or 1 teaspoon stevia), and 1/4 cup of water.]; if you need to, you can add more vinaigrette especially if you let the salad sit awhile in the refrigerator since the pasta will absorb the moisture.
OR 1/2 cup of your favorite mayonnaise mixed with several tablespoons of cold water [the water will loosen up the mayo and make for a lighter dressing without affecting the taste].
Salt and pepper to taste along with some fresh parsley to taste

I like to serve it on a bed of lettuce with some cherry or grape tomatoes as a garnish. This recipe serves 4. Delicious!

“Healthy” Chicken Tenders (gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free)

My husband has always been a big fan of the deep-fried, breaded chicken tenders while I didn’t find them that appetizing. They always seemed so tough and stringy to me. These chicken tenders are as far away from that as you can get; delicious and healthy!

Place 1 1/2 pounds of chicken tenders in a bowl and cover with your favorite milk. Let sit while you make the breading. Preheat oven to 400 degrees if using a conventional oven. My Cuisinart convection/air fry oven does a beautiful job making these crispy while keeping them fat free. And they came out so tender, juicy, while remaining crunchy on the outside.

Mix

1/3 cup ground golden flax
1/4 cup gluten-free bread crumbs (make sure they don’t have any sugar in them)
2 tablespoons of chia seeds
Salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste (I used approximately a 1/4 teaspoon of each)

Prepare an 8×10″ or 9×11″ baking dish by spraying with a non-stick spray.

Dip each chicken tender into the coating mix and place in the prepared pan. Bake for 15-18 minutes until chicken feels firm when pressed and coating is a golden brown. In my Cuisinart, I air fried them for 6-7 minutes and then turned them over for another 6 or 7 minutes.

Serve with your favorite dipping sauce; honey mustard or marinara.

Honey mustard dipping sauce: whisk together 1/4 cup of your favorite mustard with 3 tablespoons of honey (or agave or coconut nectar).

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting (dairy-free, sugar-free)

This is a very easy recipe. In a medium bowl, place:

one container non-dairy cream cheese (Daiya, Kite Hill, etc.)
1/4 cup pureed strawberries
2 tablespoons agave nectar (more or less depending on how sweet your family likes their frosting)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

With your hand mixer on low, mix; as it comes together, you can speed up your mixer to add more air to the frosting. If the mixture is too thick, add more strawberry puree; if it is too loose, add more non-dairy cream cheese.

Strawberry Cream Pie (dairy-free, gluten-free, egg-free)

My husband doesn’t often enjoy my “special” recipes but this is one he flips over. Its one of his favorite things about strawberry season. Over the years, I’ve tried a number of different pie crust recipes trying to develop a really tasty, flaky, gluten-free pie crust. I haven’t been very successful. I’ve found the tastiest gluten-free pie crust, but not sugar-free, in my local supermarket’s frozen-food section, Wholly gluten-free by Wholly Wholesome. Although not sugar-free, it has a very low amount of sugar, just 2 grams per serving.

Pre-bake pie shell in 375 degree oven following directions on the reverse of the label. Let cool. While that’s cooling make the cream:

Put in a 2 quart pot:

1 1/2 cups rice milk, or your favorite non-dairy milk [DO NOT use soymilk]
3/4 cup granulated fructose or 1/2 cup agave nectar, or 1 Tablespoon stevia

Bring to a boil. While its heating, blend:

1/2 cup of your non-dairy milk with
2 tablespoon cornstarch

When the milk is boiling, whisk in the cornstarch slurry and continue whisking until the mixture thickens. Take off the heat and add:

2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of your favorite margarine

Blend until well mixed and margarine has melted. Cool. When the cream is almost cold, pour into the baked pie shell and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

You can either use one cup of strawberry jam as a topping for this cream, or use the following:

In a small pot mix

1 cup mashed strawberries
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. If you remove this from the heat when it starts to thicken instead of waiting for a boil, you’ll have a looser topping like mine above. If you let it boil, you’ll have more like a the strawberry jam consistency.

Top with your favorite non-dairy whipped topping or you can decorate with strawberry cream cheese frosting.

Strawberry Jam (sugar free)

This is one of my favorite times of the year — strawberry season. What a wonderful treat fresh picked strawberries are; they make so many great things, so much more than just strawberry shortcake. I should probably tell you that I was never able to make jellies or jams, tried for years without any success. But when I discovered Pomona’s Universal Pectin, it works every time! Like magic!

Here’s a delicious and easy recipe for sugar-free strawberry jam. Note that you can also make raspberry, blackberry, peach, apple, pear, plum, prune, etc., jams using this method.

Wash and hull:

9 cups fresh strawberries

You can either mash them with a potato masher or puree them in your food processor; it all depends on how smooth you want your jam. If you like pieces of strawberry in your jam, use the masher.

Follow the instructions on Pomona’s Universal Pectin* to make calcium water.

Put in a 3 quart or larger pot:

8 cups strawberries, pureed or mashed
4 teaspoons calcium water

Bring to a boil.

While you’re waiting for the strawberries to heat, combine:

3/4 cup agave nectar with
4 teaspoons Pomona’s Universal Pectin

I find the pectin mixes best into the nectar if you add the pectin to the agave rather than adding the agave to the pectin. Use a small whisk to blend.

When the strawberries are bubbling, stir in the pectin-nectar mixture. Continue heating for several minutes (2-3) to dissolve the pectin. Remove from heat. Pour into water bathed jars. This should make 4 pint jars and a 1/2 pint jar.

You can either put these filled jars into a water bath for 10 minutes or, I prefer the easier method of just letting them cool completely and then placing them in the freezer.

Use Pomona’s Universal Pectin because it’s specifically created to work with low or no sugar recipes.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (gluten, dairy, egg, and refined sugar free)

In fact, these cookies have no flour in them at all. Here’s what you can do with the chickpeas you have left over when you use the agua fava (or aquafaba; bean water) in a recipe. These are pretty good although not as chewy as the high calorie version and they can be quite soft. Adding a nut butter, I use tahini since I’m allergic to nuts, gives them a great flavor. I like to freeze them because they taste really good frozen; it adds the chewiness that you get in regular chocolate chip cookies.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees; cover a large cookie sheet with parchment paper and spray with a non-stick spray.

Put in your food processor

12 oz can of garbonzo beans drained
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup nut butter or tahini
2 scoops protein powder (I really like the Garden of Eden Vanilla in this recipe)
1/2 cup chopped dates (Whole Foods has a store brand of chopped dates that are coated in oat flour instead of the traditional sugar)*
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons of baking powder

Blend until the garbonzo beans and dates are pureed into the mixture. I watch until I don’t see any more lumps and then blend it for several more minutes since its not the most pleasant experience to bite into a large chunk of chickpea when eating a cookie!

Stir into mixture 1/2 cup chocolate chips (I use Chatfield Carob Chips) [be sure to check the package for allergens such as dairy and sugar]. Drop by tablespoons (or 1/4 cup measure) onto the prepared cookie sheet and then, with the back of a wet spoon, flatten cookies. Bake for approximately 12-18 minutes depending on how large or small you make the cookies. Makes between 10 to 20 cookies depending on size.

*If you don’t like the taste of dates or they have too much sugar content, you can use 1/4 cup of agave, honey, or coconut nectar in this recipe or 1 tablespoon stevia. If you add one of the nectars, be sure to decrease the water to 1/4 cup.

Tip: I’m really bad about flattening cookies; these work as bars just as well so I usually spread the batter in a 9×9 or 8×10 greased pan and increase the baking time to 20-25 minutes.

Potato Salad 2 Ways (dairy-free, egg-free)

German style Potato salad. I like to use the small multi-color potatoes because they make the salad more interesting. And you don’t have to peel them, just cut them into quarters and cook. For this recipe,

Use a half-pound of these potatoes.
While they cook, dice up a couple of stalks of celery and some scallion (I use scallion instead of onion because it adds the flavor of onion but doesn’t give me the digestive issues that raw onions give me).
Cook 2-3 slices of bacon, chopped.
If you don’t have a vinaigrette already made, mix up one of your favorites or use a bottled vinaigrette.
Put about 1/2 cup of the vinaigrette in a medium sized bowl, add the celery and scallion along with the crumbled bacon.
When the potatoes are cooked. drain and put them directly into the mixture. Adding them when they are hot helps the potatoes absorb the dressing.
Salt and pepper to taste.
You can serve this hot but I prefer to let it sit overnight and let the flavors meld. I often leave the bacon bits out until I’m ready to serve this so that they stay crispy.
Makes 2-3 servings.

Traditional Potato Salad.

One of my favorite parts of the potato salad my mother made was the hard boiled eggs. Since I can’t eat eggs any longer, I simply

mix together cooked potatoes (1/2 pound of the small potatoes and perhaps, if I’m feeling like it, a diced small sweet potato),
diced celery and scallions, along with some crumbled bacon. Dressing consists of:
1/2 cup mayonnaise (see my recipe for vegan mayonnaise under dressings)
1 teaspoon prepared mustard
1 tablespoon agave nectar
1/2 teaspoon of my favorite herb blend (McCormicks or Mrs. Dash)
Salt and pepper to taste.

If you can still eat eggs, by all means add 1-2 diced hard-boiled eggs. This makes 2-3 servings.

Cole Slaw Two Ways (dairy-free, egg-free)

With a small cabbage (I like to use Chinese cabbage), remove outer leaves and cut in slides or wedges. Put in your food processor and pulse until medium dice (depending on what you like, me I like to taste the cabbage but I know people, like my husband, who like cole slaw finely diced).

Put in a medium to large bowl depending on how much cabbage you have and add:

1/2 cup diced scallion
1/2 cup shredded carrots

To make the dressing, put in a small bowl:

1 cup mayonnaise (see my recipe for egg-free mayonnaise)
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1 tablespoon agave nectar

Stir until mixed and add to the cabbage mixture. Depending on the amount of cabbage you have, you may need a little more or a little less mayonnaise. Salt and pepper to taste.

If you’d rather not have a mayonnaise-based cole slaw, here’s a vinaigrette to use instead:

Blend together:

1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup of your favorite vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons agave nectar
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1 tablespoon of your favorite mustard

I use a canning jar and shake it until emulsified.

Egg-Free Mayonnaise

Its been quite a few years since I was able to use mayonnaise products since I became allergic to eggs. Most mass-produced mayonnaise also includes oils that I can’t have like canola or soybean. About three years ago, I learned about agua fava, the liquid that you drain off the can of beans, like garbanzo or kidney, which can be used as an egg substitute. I resisted this for quite a while since I didn’t relish the idea of using this liquid — really turned me off in fact. Last year, I really wanted some cole slaw and was tired of my vinaigrette version. It tasted like the Cain’s mayonnaise I grew up with! I was thrilled. So, with summer approaching and the time for cooler foods, here’s my recipe for egg-free mayonnaise using agua fava and some salad recipes to go with it. And the great thing about it is that you don’t have to worry about it spoiling like you do egg-based mayos.

Put in a blender:

1/3 cup agua fava
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
2 tablespoons vinegar (I like the rice vinegar but feel free to use your favorite, or lemon juice if you like)

Start blender on a low setting and begin slowly, and I mean really slowly, drizzling in oil. You’ll add 1 cup of oil total for a thick mayonnaise, or 1 1/4 cup for a thinner dressing. I like to use 1/2 cup olive oil and 1/2 cup avocado oil. Makes me feel less guilty using oils that are actually good for us.

Makes a little over 1 cup of mayonnaise. Use in your favorite recipes. Most people won’t be able to tell the difference between this and the mayo you buy.

Rice Milk

Yes, you can make your own rice milk and its actually very easy to do, and much less expensive then buying quarts of it at the store. You also control the amount of fat and sugar in the rice milk. Here’s the basic recipe.

Add to a blender

6 cups of cool water
1 1/2 cups of cooked brown rice (you can use white rice if you prefer)
2 tablespoons of agave nectar*

Blend until smooth, it takes quite awhile, I usually blend it for approximately 8-10 minutes. Pour through a small sieve to get out residue of the rice that did not blend. Store in the refrigerator; this will last approximately 6-7 days.

*Optional; you can also increase or decrease the agave depending on how sweet you want the milk; for savory recipes, use less agave and for dessert recipes, use a little more if you want.

To make vanilla rice milk, add 2 teaspoons of vanilla.