Am I really sensitive to chocolate now.... Nooooooo!

Two nights ago, I decided to cook some chocolate walnut cookies. Boy were they good. The tasted just like walnut fudge brownies. Even though I was trying to avoid chocolate, I still took my chances. Well those chances resulted in a rough morning. I always find out if a food was not good for me the next morning. I wake up with pretty much the same symptoms of weakness, nausea, bloating, sharp pains from trapped gas, and dreadful heart palps.

 I know what chocolate does to me but I still want to eat it. I have to be careful with it because in the past, if I ate too much of it, I would get heart palps. This was my warning sign in the past to let me know when I was over doing it. Heart palps are scary when they just happen out of the blue after eating chocolate.This would cause anxiety sometimes but I still ate chocolate. I ate a lot of it whenever I wanted because I liked chocolate, especially milk chocolate. Now when I eat chocolate, I get acid reflux later and major trapped gas. Oh and that is not it. I also get weakness, nausea and heart palps on top of that. So now, I am more sensitive to chocolate than I was last year and beyond. What happen to my stomach? Well a fact I learned is that if you have any type of food intolerance, it will get worse with age. You think you will out grow it, but not likely. It makes sense if you think about it. If you pay close attention to your body, you will learn to recognize when its telling you that a certain type of food is like poison to YOUR body. I am still getting used to the fact that what I am experiencing is likely hereditary. To my surprise, a couple of months ago, my dad listed foods to me over the phone that he could not tolerate. They are the exact same foods I can't tolerate. Even my new sensitivites to foods such as corn, salads, and wheat. 

Yes, I have a new favorite ice cream!

I have been avoiding soy for about 9 months now. One of my favorite cold treats was So Delicious Purely Decadent Praline flavored soy ice cream. It tasted just like real whole milk ice cream or yogurt. It was soooo gooood. After doing my elimination diet, I stopped eating soy completely. I have not really test to see if I could eat soy again. I don't really care to since I ate very large amounts of it as a vegan before I became ill. Anyway, I had been buying the So Delicious Vanilla Coconut ice cream. Tasted eh ok, but I'm not a huge fan of the coconut taste. I like coconut in macaroons, coconut milk in smoothies and coconut breaded shrimp. I don't know why I overlooked the Rice Dream ice cream. I tried it a couple times before and I liked it. I just like the soy ice cream so much better before. Rice Dream Neapolitan flavor ice cream is the best tasting rice ice cream I ever tasted. Well second to the soy ice cream i used to love. Neapolitan Rice Dream is definitely worth the money. I pick mine up from Sprouts. Today was the first time I tried it and if I wake tomorrow with a happy stomach this flavored rice dream ice cream is a keeper. If you can no longer tolerate dairy and you miss ice cream, Fro yo, or whatever give this non-dairy gluten free frozen dessert a try. It does contain soy lecithin however but its located almost at the end of the list of ingredients which may mean there's not that much in it. I wish there was an ice cream parlor that carried only non-frozen desserts for people like me who can not tolerate dairy or just want to do away with dairy all together. Maybe one day I will open one. It will have rice ice cream, coconut ice cream, sorbet, soy ice cream (i guess), gluten free rice cream sandwiches, bars and other yummy desserts. That would be soooo awesome. Why not throw in some paleo desserts, raw food desserts like apple pie, and some vegan pastries? Make it a dessert shop. That would be an awesome place!

Gluten Free Pound Cake (also corn and soy free)

Since I have been on my very strict whole food diet, I have been missing some baked goods. Pound cake is one of them. Pound cake is great with ice cream. Its just a good southern comfort dessert. I remember grandma making this and man was it good. There is also a cake called sprite cake, just like pound cake but yummier. Those of you from the south may know what I am talking about. I think sprite has corn syrup in it so that's out for me. I can find a way around that somehow. When I do, I will blog about it. So here is the recipe for a delicious pound cake.

Ingredients:

1 cup sweet rice flour ( I used brown rice)
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch
2 tsp baking powder ( I used the brand without cornstarch)
1 tsp guar gum (xanthan gum is fine too) 
1 cup vegan butter softened ( I used 1/2 cup earth balance coconut spread and 1/2 cup vegetable shortening)
1 cup organic pure cane sugar
2 tbs raw organic honey
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, blend flours, starch, gum, and baking powder. In another bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add and blend in one egg at a time. Then add vanilla extract and honey. Blend some more. Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients slowly. Blend well. Pour batter into loaf pan and bake at 350 for 60 minutes. Let cool a bit and enjoy.

Coconut Carrot Cookie Balls (dairy,soy,corn,and gluten free)

I was at Jimbo's Natural foods grocer the other day and I had never tried anything from their bakery. After standing there asking questions about the ingredients, making sure I don't eat anything that I am allergic/intolerant to, I decided to try the vegan coconut cookie ball. I was surprised when I saw that it had carrots in it. As a matter of fact, I think the tag may have read vegan macaroon. Anyhow, I bought a couple. It tasted.....well not as good as it looked. It was not sweet or moist. It was dry and pretty much lacked flavor. So I decided to try my hand at it. I must say it took a few tries to get it to taste how I like it, sweet and coco nutty. So here is my version of the coconut macaroon:

 

Preparation: Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Ingredients:

1 cup Unsweetened coconut shreds
1cup Brown Rice Flour
1 cup of shredded organic carrot (I shredded one large carrot)
1/2 cup powdered sugar (I used the corn starch free powdered sugar it has tapioca starch instead)
1/2 cup vegan butter/margarine ( I used half coconut spread by earth balance and half vegetable shortening)
Optional: extra coconut shreds for coating


Directions: Mix all ingredients in a ball until well combine. Make balls. Roll balls in coconut shreds and bake. Bake cookies on parchment paper on cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.